20 July 2006

God of Hell

The God of Hell, if you didn't know, is Pluto, the namesake of Plutonium, which is—well, sort of—the subject of Sam Shepard's relatively new play The God of Hell playing now at the Geffen Playhouse (a theatre of which I am in full support and about which I am totally excited—if only I were going to be in town.)

By the way, don't confuse The God of Hell with this. I know you were doing that. Glad I could clarify.

God of Hell is supposed to be really funny... and I think it's supposed to be chillingly scary as well. It's not really either as much as it ought to be. It's sort of an absurdist play that isn't really all that absurd. It's about the American government invading and trampling on the civil liberties of American people. In the play the representative of the government tortures an American man for reasons that remain unknown to the audience and a Wisconsin housewife watches in horror as the government takes over her husband and orders him to leave his life and go do work (the nature of which is, again, unknown to the audience), totally ruining her life. The government agent is disguised as a salesman (ha ha.)

I think the biggest problem with the play is that the whole thing doesn't seem very far-fetched and, therefore, not very absurd. Watching it, and my companion agreed with me, the action of the play almost seemed plausible. Our country is in a sad, sad state when it comes to civil liberties and I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that some Colorado intellectual was being held and tortured by the American government in the name of National Security.

Anyway, I wasn't too excited about the show. Though, I had a great time with my friend.

And we met a person named Karen who works for the Geffen at the after-party (free Peroni and appetizers in this really cool space they have there—I'm all about the Geffen).Karen: What do you do?My companion: I run a catering company. We cater cocktails.Karen: Cool. I have to hit you up. What do you do?Aaron: I'm soon to be a full-time student.Karen: Oh! How long you in town for?Aaron: Only about two more weeks.